The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
4.
Addressing
the potential threat from terrorists with weapons of
mass
destruction,
President Bush described Iraq in his State of the Union speech
on
29 January
as part of an “axis of evil”.
5.
The speech
prompted a major public debate on both sides of the Atlantic
about
policy
towards Iraq.
6.
In his annual
State of the Union speech on 29 January 2002 President
Bush
described
the regimes in North Korea and Iran as “sponsors of
terrorism”.1
He
added
that Iraq
had continued to:
“… flaunt
its hostility towards America and to support terror … The Iraqi
regime has
plotted to
develop anthrax, and nerve gas, and nuclear weapons for over a
decade.
This is a
regime that has already used poison gas to murder thousands of its
own
citizens …
This is a regime that agreed to international inspections – then
kicked out
the
inspectors. This is a regime that has something to hide from the
civilised world.”
7.
President Bush
stated:
“States
like these [North Korea, Iran and Iraq], and their terrorist
allies, constitute an
axis of
evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world. By seeking weapons
of mass
destruction
these regimes pose a grave and growing danger.
“America
will do what is necessary to ensure our nation’s security … We’ll
be
deliberate,
yet time is not on our side. I will not wait on events while
dangers gather.
I will not
stand idly by, as perils draw closer and closer. The United States
of America
will not
permit the world’s most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the
world’s
most
destructive weapons.
“Our war on
terror is well begun, but it is only begun. This campaign may not
be
finished on
our watch – yet it must be and it will be waged on our
watch.”
8.
In his memoir
President Bush wrote that the media had taken:
“… the line
to mean that the three countries had formed an alliance. That
missed the
point. The
axis … was the link between Governments that pursued WMD and
the
terrorists
who could use those weapons. There was a larger point in the speech
that
no one
could miss. I was serious about dealing with Iraq.”2
1
The White
House, 29 January 2002, The
President’s State of the Union Address.
2
Bush
GW. Decision
Points. Virgin
Books, 2010.
388